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O.K. Last year, in 2010, we finished 8-4 in the regular season with a Fiesta Bowl loss to Oklahoma, tied for the Big East crown at 5-2 in conference, and finished the year with a Sagarin rating of 56 (not as high as we'd been in other years). I predicted 8-4 for 2011. My prediction was based on a better D and better special teams play with most key pieces returning, an easier schedule and one extra home game, balanced out on the negative side by almost total turnover at the offensive skill positions. I did hedge my prediction by saying I wasn't adjusting my pick for the coaching changes because I had no way of predicting how that would effect us, although it was certainly possible that it would effect us. In fact, we went 5-7, 3-4 in conference, and had our Sagarin rating slip to 78.
So what happened to cause us to endure our first losing season since '06? I will look at changes in offense, defense and special teams, and then conclude with some less statistical factors. Before doing so, however, I want to make one key point. The first is that our schedule did not turn out to be easier in '11 than in '10, because our three losable OOC games, Vandy, ISU and WMU, were all against teams that had very strong for them showings in the Sagarins this year (39, 29 and 77, respectively). Thus, our Sagarin SOS in '11 was 64, actually (immaterially) higher than our 65 in '10. Also, we "lost" this season in September. The 3-4 conference showing was not inconsistent with where I thought this team would be. It was the OOC showing that was.
Let's start with special teams. We returned the great Dave Teggart, and he went 22 for 28 on FGs, compared to 25 for 31 last year. So while his overall performance remained very strong given the lengths of many of his makes, his overall percentage went down and, unlike 2010 where his leg won us a game in Tampa, this year he did not (had he been perfect against ISU, where he made two 50 plus FGs but missed two in the 40s, we might have been bowling this year). We returned both Chad Christen for kickoffs and Cole Wagner for Punts, both of whom were clearly getting better as last year went on. This year, Christen did get better. His average went from 64.9 to 65.7, but and touchbacks went up from 9 to 14. I think you saw his leg get stronger, but he struggled a little the first half of the year trying, at the staff's direction, to focus more on the side of the field he was kicking to. I expect more improvement next year. Punting, Cole Wagner's average went down from 41.3 to 41.1, but ratio of punts inside the 20 to touchbacks went from 25 to 9 to 21 to 5. I think, like Christen, he struggled a little early focusing more on direction, but should be better for it in 2012. On kick coverage, punt coverge got materially better this year, giving up only 6.5 a return as opposed to 11.0, but kickoff coverage was worse at 24.2 as opposed to 22.5. The biggest disappointment on specials, of course, was our return game. We went from 8.2 yards per punt return to 5.7, despite the shuffled returners in '10 compared to Nick Williams all year in '11, and on kickoffs we went from 27.0 and 3 TDs to 24.2 and no TDs (although we were seeing substantial improvement here as the year went on). So, while it is hard to summarize a collection of different units, my takeaway is I expected the way that specials finished the year in 2010, combined with returning personnel, for this to be even more of a strength in 2011 than it was in 2010. In fact, it wasn't. Special teams was probably close to neutral this year, and we only got to neutral because FG kickers against us this year was only 9-18. It should also be mentioned that the only two times we had winning records in the Big East, we needed to outplay our opponents on special teams substantially to do so.
What about offense? Coming into the season, everyone was rightfully worried about the loss of everyone at the skill positions, but on the other hand we thought we were fine on the OL and there was some of a "how much worse can the passing game be" attitude. I thought the O might be down from 2010, but not by a huge amount and not by an amount that would stop us from beating mediocre teams at home. What was reality? There has been a lot of discussion about whether our QB play was better, worse, or the same than last year. Our QB efficiency rating went up from 103.7 to 113.2. That is a material gain. Passing yardage went up by 43 yards per game, 2.4 yards per catch and 1.0 yards per pass, and TDs passing went up from 10 to 14 while interceptions were flat at 9. So, once the ball left the QBs hand, we were clearly better in '11 than in '10, and JM clearly produced more than ZF did (and this was all produced with a less threatening running game). You do, however, have to balance that with the negative, which was sacks allowed which, remarkably, went from 15 to 41. Did this reflect worse play on the OL? A QB who, while he threw better, couldn't get rid of the ball quickly enough? An OL struggling with schemes? A staff being more aggressive and putting us in more positions where the D could tee off? Yes, probably, to all of them contributing. But that change in sacks allowed may be the single biggest key to our disappointing season. On the rushing side, we knew we wouldn't be as good without Todman and we weren't. Rushing yardage went down a remarkable 56 yards a game, and 1.4 yards a rush from 4.5 to 3.1 (although that number was greatly influenced by the number of sacks allowed). Total yardage went down from 326 a game to 313, and yards per play went down from 4.6 to 4.0. We had two less first downs in 2011 and 2.4 less points per game. And we were slightly more effective in the redzone (88% to 89% in scoring and 49% to 53% in TD scoring). So the bottom line on offense is that while it was a mixed bag, it went down a little. We saw some life in the passing game, which may give hope for the future, but those gains were unfortunately more than offset by the loss of productivity in the running game and the incredible number of sacks allowed.
It was much more surprisingat least to me, how this year went on defense. We gave up 29 fewer first downs, but 2.3 more points per game. The rushing defense was great, where yardage per game went down from 143 to 86 and yardage per carry 3.9 to 2.7. Those are remarkable gains. Were they caused by sacks? I don't think so. Sacks went up from 27 to 35, which is material but not overwhelming enough to cause these statistical changes. More likely, the running D was this great because the front 7 played the run aggressively every down at the expense of playing the pass. Look at the passing stats. Yards per game allowed went up from 223 to 281, yards per catch from 11.1 to 13.6 and yards per pass from 6.5 to 7.9. We were awful in pass defense this year, period. Total yardage per play went up .2 per snap and per game was flat. Turnovers forced was flat at 31 (although that is a slightly higher number per game this year). My second key stat of the season -- other than sacks allowed -- is TD allowed in the redzone, which went up from 46% to 59%. All we had to do to do better than 2-4 in games decided by 8 points or less was sometimes hold our opponent to a damn FG. Bottom line on D -- we were more aggressive, but it didn't make us better. It made us a sieve on pass defense.
A few more statistical comparisons before I try to giftwrap what happened for the holidays. In 2010 we had 27 fewer penalty yards per game than our opponents. That went down to a 5 yard advantage this year. We were plus 12 on turnovers last year. That went down to plus 8 this year, still good obviously. We were outgained by 41 ypg last year and 53 this year, but last year outscored our opponents by 57 points and this year were outscored by 1. And it all adds up from going 8-5 to going 5-7.
I do think a summary of what happened flows fairly easily from looking hard at the statistics. While we played smashmouth football prior to this year, we played conservative, and at times passive, football. We did what we could do and we sat back and let the other team make the mistakes trying to make plays. And then we took advantage of it. Coach P is clearly moving us towards a more aggressive style of football, both offensively and defensively, and we were the worse for it in terms of wins and losses, I do think 7-5, playing our old way, was likely this year. But that does not mean P can't make us better, over a few years, switching to more aggressive schemes and attitudes. It also does not mean, TDH notwithstanding, that it will make us better. Will we improve at these schemes as they become more familiar? Yes, probably. P has never been an incompetent teacher as coach and I see no reason to think we won't see improvement executing his schemes. Are the schemes, when executed better, going to be better than the schemes Edsall executed? More importantly, will those schemes work for the players who the staff implementing them can bring to UConn? The answer is we will see. Nothing done this year proves we can or we can't. We hired this head coach, and we are going to have to see if, over a few years, the shift to aggressiveness on both sides of the ball will be a better way for this program to go.
And that is my bottom line on the staff as well. Was waiting until late September to pick a QB, in hindsight, a mistake? Probably. Was I angry that we didn't sit on the lead against Vandy? You bet. Did it make sense that there was no adjustment that could be made against WMU? Nope. Did I think the coaches handled the last two minutes of halves well. LMAO. But, while those kind of things probably kept us from being 7-5 this year, they are not important in the big scheme of things. Yes, we could have won more games with fewer changes being made immediately, but we could have won less if P did what our former coach did at Maryland and insisted on tearing everything down and having it be rebuilt from ground zero his way. P and his staff tried to find a balance, and if they didn't get it perfectly correct in year 1, especially in the start of the year when our die was cast, so be it. My bigger long term worry about this staff remains can they recruit, playing the rating services game, at a much higher level than where we've been. Will the class of 2012 be an improvement, to some degree? Yes. And can you fairly judge a staff's recruiting with a class who had started to be recruited before P got here? No. But I said this when P was hired and I will repeat it now -- he may win here, but he will not win here using the same strategy Randy Edsall used. He will not win here finishing seventh or eight every year in the recruiting rankings, and doing better than that by keeping things simple and doing remarkably well finding very talented football players that no one else wants. Ultimately, the success of P making this team more aggressive on both sides of the ball, and taking this team to a different level, will depend on him moving this program to another level in the recruiting rankings. Not an SEC level, because northeast kids will continue to be undervalued. But at least into the top half of our conference. To me, the jury is out on whether we can get there. But here is hoping we can.
Between new year and recruiting day, I will try to summarize our roster position by position to give us something to talk about. Happy holidays everyone. And to TDH -- may your stocking be stuffed with happy dreams of 400 plus passing yardage games.
So what happened to cause us to endure our first losing season since '06? I will look at changes in offense, defense and special teams, and then conclude with some less statistical factors. Before doing so, however, I want to make one key point. The first is that our schedule did not turn out to be easier in '11 than in '10, because our three losable OOC games, Vandy, ISU and WMU, were all against teams that had very strong for them showings in the Sagarins this year (39, 29 and 77, respectively). Thus, our Sagarin SOS in '11 was 64, actually (immaterially) higher than our 65 in '10. Also, we "lost" this season in September. The 3-4 conference showing was not inconsistent with where I thought this team would be. It was the OOC showing that was.
Let's start with special teams. We returned the great Dave Teggart, and he went 22 for 28 on FGs, compared to 25 for 31 last year. So while his overall performance remained very strong given the lengths of many of his makes, his overall percentage went down and, unlike 2010 where his leg won us a game in Tampa, this year he did not (had he been perfect against ISU, where he made two 50 plus FGs but missed two in the 40s, we might have been bowling this year). We returned both Chad Christen for kickoffs and Cole Wagner for Punts, both of whom were clearly getting better as last year went on. This year, Christen did get better. His average went from 64.9 to 65.7, but and touchbacks went up from 9 to 14. I think you saw his leg get stronger, but he struggled a little the first half of the year trying, at the staff's direction, to focus more on the side of the field he was kicking to. I expect more improvement next year. Punting, Cole Wagner's average went down from 41.3 to 41.1, but ratio of punts inside the 20 to touchbacks went from 25 to 9 to 21 to 5. I think, like Christen, he struggled a little early focusing more on direction, but should be better for it in 2012. On kick coverage, punt coverge got materially better this year, giving up only 6.5 a return as opposed to 11.0, but kickoff coverage was worse at 24.2 as opposed to 22.5. The biggest disappointment on specials, of course, was our return game. We went from 8.2 yards per punt return to 5.7, despite the shuffled returners in '10 compared to Nick Williams all year in '11, and on kickoffs we went from 27.0 and 3 TDs to 24.2 and no TDs (although we were seeing substantial improvement here as the year went on). So, while it is hard to summarize a collection of different units, my takeaway is I expected the way that specials finished the year in 2010, combined with returning personnel, for this to be even more of a strength in 2011 than it was in 2010. In fact, it wasn't. Special teams was probably close to neutral this year, and we only got to neutral because FG kickers against us this year was only 9-18. It should also be mentioned that the only two times we had winning records in the Big East, we needed to outplay our opponents on special teams substantially to do so.
What about offense? Coming into the season, everyone was rightfully worried about the loss of everyone at the skill positions, but on the other hand we thought we were fine on the OL and there was some of a "how much worse can the passing game be" attitude. I thought the O might be down from 2010, but not by a huge amount and not by an amount that would stop us from beating mediocre teams at home. What was reality? There has been a lot of discussion about whether our QB play was better, worse, or the same than last year. Our QB efficiency rating went up from 103.7 to 113.2. That is a material gain. Passing yardage went up by 43 yards per game, 2.4 yards per catch and 1.0 yards per pass, and TDs passing went up from 10 to 14 while interceptions were flat at 9. So, once the ball left the QBs hand, we were clearly better in '11 than in '10, and JM clearly produced more than ZF did (and this was all produced with a less threatening running game). You do, however, have to balance that with the negative, which was sacks allowed which, remarkably, went from 15 to 41. Did this reflect worse play on the OL? A QB who, while he threw better, couldn't get rid of the ball quickly enough? An OL struggling with schemes? A staff being more aggressive and putting us in more positions where the D could tee off? Yes, probably, to all of them contributing. But that change in sacks allowed may be the single biggest key to our disappointing season. On the rushing side, we knew we wouldn't be as good without Todman and we weren't. Rushing yardage went down a remarkable 56 yards a game, and 1.4 yards a rush from 4.5 to 3.1 (although that number was greatly influenced by the number of sacks allowed). Total yardage went down from 326 a game to 313, and yards per play went down from 4.6 to 4.0. We had two less first downs in 2011 and 2.4 less points per game. And we were slightly more effective in the redzone (88% to 89% in scoring and 49% to 53% in TD scoring). So the bottom line on offense is that while it was a mixed bag, it went down a little. We saw some life in the passing game, which may give hope for the future, but those gains were unfortunately more than offset by the loss of productivity in the running game and the incredible number of sacks allowed.
It was much more surprisingat least to me, how this year went on defense. We gave up 29 fewer first downs, but 2.3 more points per game. The rushing defense was great, where yardage per game went down from 143 to 86 and yardage per carry 3.9 to 2.7. Those are remarkable gains. Were they caused by sacks? I don't think so. Sacks went up from 27 to 35, which is material but not overwhelming enough to cause these statistical changes. More likely, the running D was this great because the front 7 played the run aggressively every down at the expense of playing the pass. Look at the passing stats. Yards per game allowed went up from 223 to 281, yards per catch from 11.1 to 13.6 and yards per pass from 6.5 to 7.9. We were awful in pass defense this year, period. Total yardage per play went up .2 per snap and per game was flat. Turnovers forced was flat at 31 (although that is a slightly higher number per game this year). My second key stat of the season -- other than sacks allowed -- is TD allowed in the redzone, which went up from 46% to 59%. All we had to do to do better than 2-4 in games decided by 8 points or less was sometimes hold our opponent to a damn FG. Bottom line on D -- we were more aggressive, but it didn't make us better. It made us a sieve on pass defense.
A few more statistical comparisons before I try to giftwrap what happened for the holidays. In 2010 we had 27 fewer penalty yards per game than our opponents. That went down to a 5 yard advantage this year. We were plus 12 on turnovers last year. That went down to plus 8 this year, still good obviously. We were outgained by 41 ypg last year and 53 this year, but last year outscored our opponents by 57 points and this year were outscored by 1. And it all adds up from going 8-5 to going 5-7.
I do think a summary of what happened flows fairly easily from looking hard at the statistics. While we played smashmouth football prior to this year, we played conservative, and at times passive, football. We did what we could do and we sat back and let the other team make the mistakes trying to make plays. And then we took advantage of it. Coach P is clearly moving us towards a more aggressive style of football, both offensively and defensively, and we were the worse for it in terms of wins and losses, I do think 7-5, playing our old way, was likely this year. But that does not mean P can't make us better, over a few years, switching to more aggressive schemes and attitudes. It also does not mean, TDH notwithstanding, that it will make us better. Will we improve at these schemes as they become more familiar? Yes, probably. P has never been an incompetent teacher as coach and I see no reason to think we won't see improvement executing his schemes. Are the schemes, when executed better, going to be better than the schemes Edsall executed? More importantly, will those schemes work for the players who the staff implementing them can bring to UConn? The answer is we will see. Nothing done this year proves we can or we can't. We hired this head coach, and we are going to have to see if, over a few years, the shift to aggressiveness on both sides of the ball will be a better way for this program to go.
And that is my bottom line on the staff as well. Was waiting until late September to pick a QB, in hindsight, a mistake? Probably. Was I angry that we didn't sit on the lead against Vandy? You bet. Did it make sense that there was no adjustment that could be made against WMU? Nope. Did I think the coaches handled the last two minutes of halves well. LMAO. But, while those kind of things probably kept us from being 7-5 this year, they are not important in the big scheme of things. Yes, we could have won more games with fewer changes being made immediately, but we could have won less if P did what our former coach did at Maryland and insisted on tearing everything down and having it be rebuilt from ground zero his way. P and his staff tried to find a balance, and if they didn't get it perfectly correct in year 1, especially in the start of the year when our die was cast, so be it. My bigger long term worry about this staff remains can they recruit, playing the rating services game, at a much higher level than where we've been. Will the class of 2012 be an improvement, to some degree? Yes. And can you fairly judge a staff's recruiting with a class who had started to be recruited before P got here? No. But I said this when P was hired and I will repeat it now -- he may win here, but he will not win here using the same strategy Randy Edsall used. He will not win here finishing seventh or eight every year in the recruiting rankings, and doing better than that by keeping things simple and doing remarkably well finding very talented football players that no one else wants. Ultimately, the success of P making this team more aggressive on both sides of the ball, and taking this team to a different level, will depend on him moving this program to another level in the recruiting rankings. Not an SEC level, because northeast kids will continue to be undervalued. But at least into the top half of our conference. To me, the jury is out on whether we can get there. But here is hoping we can.
Between new year and recruiting day, I will try to summarize our roster position by position to give us something to talk about. Happy holidays everyone. And to TDH -- may your stocking be stuffed with happy dreams of 400 plus passing yardage games.
